This Summer’s Links

“The Choir” is a new TV series premiering July 7 on BBC America. It’s about choirmaster Gareth Malone going into schools & communities in England that have never had a choral tradition, & starting up a choir from ground zero. Kind of like “Glee”, only real. Looks awesome & inspiring, I hope you have BBC America on your cable/satellite, I don’t, so I’m gonna have to find some other way of getting to watch it. Previews here: http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/401/the-choir-videos.jsp

This is SoundBeam Vers. 5, & I don’t know how I missed learning about this amazing device. It’s basically the Therimin, updated for the 21st Century w/ a full range of musical sounds, & you have to see it to believe it:

The implications for use w/ Spec Ed, dancers, & little kids who love to wiggle is just unbelievable. One thing I like about it is that it’s not beat-dependent – it’s like GarageBand in the sense that it enables music-making – improvisation & composition – for people who don’t have lots of skill (or any!) on an instrument, but unlike looping software, everything doesn’t have to have a steady beat, there’s way more possibilities for phrasing, rubato, musiciality.

Too bad it’s $4,000. But – you know, it looks to me like it should qualify as a Spec Ed purchase under the Fed Govt’s educational stimulus plan…

But then………..there’s this – for only $129:

Video promo from Korg on how it works:

There’s a Pro version, but it’s $399, what the heck, I’d say this little number would do the job for a lot less. Still not as cool as the SoundBeam, though.

Well, this post sort of turned into a product review, hmmm, wonder how that happened… that’s enough for now.